ROUGHYEDS will be on a mission to put in a mistake-free performance when they face North Wales this Sunday at the Vestacare Stadium.
After last week’s game against Workington was called off due to the Cumbrian side being stuck on the M6, Oldham are still looking to right the wrongs of the two previous losses against Doncaster and Dewsbury.
Stuart Littler’s men came up with 17 errors in each of those two losses and Luke Nelmes is determined to correct that, as the club heads towards the play-offs.
“We are never going to win against the top six sides coming up with that many errors, we just can’t get away with doing that,” said Nelmes.
“We have scored some really good tries and our skill level is high in that sense, but the frustrating thing has been the ones we have conceded.
“They have been barge-overs and we are not making teams break us down, but that’s because of the error count.
“We’ve been giving ourselves too much defending to do recently and teams have been just rolling over the top of us, because we’re knackered.”
Roughyeds have been uncompromising in attack this year, and have averaged over 35 points scored each game — that’s just two less than League One leaders Dewsbury.
There has been a tendency, though, to let leads slip and allow teams back in, most notably against Doncaster and Dewsbury.
“We’ve got a great captain and leader in Ridy (Martyn Ridyard), but he can’t do it all by himself,” added Nelmes.
“Sometimes we need to share that workload, and improve our game management to grind some sets out when we are in front.
“We are guilty of trying to overplay sometimes and we have tried to score in every single tackle, but we will learn from that.”
Sunday’s opponents North Wales — who had a horror start to League One having lost all six of their opening games — edged into the play-offs last weekend with a victory over Rochdale.
Crusaders have gained ground having lost just one game in their last six, but Oldham will be looking to recapture their form as they attempt to do the double over the North Wales side.
Prior to the men kicking off at 3pm, Oldham’s women’s team will also face Crusaders Women in a curtain-raiser which gets underway at 12:15pm, with a ticket gaining fans entry for both games.
Admission prices are £16 for adults, £10 for concessions (65 and over), £5 for students and free for under-16s and they can be bought at roughyeds.co.uk/tickets
